She had been swept away, into a sea of pulsing passion unlike any passion she’d ever dreamed existed. Just that short exposure had been enough — to addict her, to make her yearn. After that. . stating that she wanted him as her lover hadn’t been so hard. She would have given him whatever words he’d wanted for another taste of that drugging delight.

Forcing open her suddenly heavy lids, she peeked down, watched as, having paid homage to the curve of her shoulder, he caught the ribbon tie with his teeth, tugged until the tiny bow unraveled.

Then with his cheek, his jaw, he eased the fine material down.

His beard brushed her skin, just the lightest abrasion.

She gasped, felt her spine arch, pressing her upper breast to his lips. Her lids fell as she felt those wicked lips curve against her skin, then shuddered as they artfully traced, tantalizing her with their touch. With caresses that caught and held her senses, then led them on a slow exploration.

Of her own body. She’d never known her skin could be so sensitive, that her nerves could spike with such sharp sensation. Had never known that the mere brush of his lips over her bare nipple could make it tighten to such a degree that she felt real pain.

Pain he drowned beneath sensation as he laved, then drew the damp bud into his hot mouth. Suckled slowly, gently, then increasingly powerfully.

She arched on a strangled gasp.

He released her tortured flesh instantly — and she immediately wanted him back.

Hands gripping his skull, she tensed her muscles to direct him, but his bearded chin brushed across her chest to her other breast. .

Sensing her hesitation, knowing its cause, with a mental smile Breckenridge settled to repeat the long-drawn process of educating her senses as to how much she could feel, how much fascinating sensation he could press on her solely with his lips, his tongue, his mouth, caressing and sampling her sumptuous breasts.

He hadn’t realized they would be quite so distracting, so absorbing. He’d expected to have to force himself to go slowly, but instead. . uncovering her, discovering her, was proving to be a delight all its own, unexpectedly compelling.

Her breasts weren’t large so much as perfectly formed. Her skin was more satin than silk, fine and smooth and thoroughly caress-worthy. Her pert nipples, now ruched into tight buds, were exquisite.

He was an expert; he knew. Knew the scale of feminine allure to the last degree.

She rated very highly.

To his senses she topped the scale.

Not what he’d expected, not at all, but a revelation powerful enough to completely focus every male instinct he possessed.

On her.

Even as he drew the fine silk of her chemise further down, exposing more of her delicate skin to his lips and tongue, even as he slid lower in the bed, beneath the covers, to continue her education and his, he was conscious of the slowly escalating thud of desire in his veins.

Not demanding yet, nowhere near commanding yet, but it was there, assuredly there.

He wanted her, and he always had. As his fingers tangled in her rucked chemise and he drew the silk down below her waist, uncovering her navel, he could admit that, embrace that. It didn’t matter now that he had her in his arms, all but naked.

He drew back, pushing up in the bed to look, to examine. Shifting to settle alongside her, the covers held back by his shoulders, letting the moonlight fall in a pearlescent wash over her smooth skin, highlighting her curves, casting mysterious shadows, he set his other hand on her breast, carefully cradled the flesh, then shaped it, stroked, caressed.

Learned by a different sort of touch.

Felt her gaze on his face as he possessed her flesh by gentle degrees. Then he closed his hand and kneaded. Knew when her lids fell; heard her breath catch.

She stirred, but he kept her there, his to savor in the moonlight.

His to examine until he’d had his fill, until he’d filled her senses with his knowing.

Lips were more intimate than hands; touch, caresses, usually came first, but with her he’d instinctively known that starting with touch would have been too mundane, that it wouldn’t have surprised her senses sufficiently to capture them.

Not as he’d wanted them caught.

Caught so that he held them, wholly his to command. His to lead, as he’d told her.

He bent his head and kissed her, took her lips again in a long foray into pleasure while his hand firmed on her breast, then he found the pebbled nipple and rolled it, then squeezed.

Drank her shocked gasp, sensed the moan she fought to hold back.

And was content.

She was no longer in danger of taking a chill. When he finally lifted his head, released her breast and slid down in the bed once more, her lips were swollen, her skin rosy, her breathing harried, edging toward a pant, yet still she watched him from beneath her long lashes, waiting for his next lesson.

Lips and tongue first; touch could come later.

He held to that principle, licked and laved his way over her tensed midriff, down past her waist to nibble unexpectedly at the edge of her navel, surprising her into a choked laugh.

He looked down at her quivering belly. At his fingers, long and tanned, spread over the ultrafine skin. “Ticklish?”

It took her a telling moment to find breath. To reclaim her tongue. “No. . your beard.”

“Ah, yes.” Tactile abrasion, a useful addition to his sensual armory.

He looked down to where the near diaphanous folds of her chemise inadequately screened the soft brown curls at the apex of her thighs.

Sensed the expectation that sank talons of anticipation into her flesh, let it grip her, then calmly turned his attention elsewhere, to her long legs.

Reaching down, he found one foot, traced the arch, then slowly trailed the pads of his fingers up and around, over her calf, circling her knee, then traced, barely touching, up the sensitive inner face of her thigh, stopping a bare inch from those mesmerizing curls and the infinitely softer flesh they concealed.

She’d stopped breathing again, sucked in a desperate breath then held it as he repeated the long, lingering caress from the sole of her other foot to the top of her inner thigh. This time he let his fingertips continue upward, blazing what he knew she would feel as a line of fire up her hip, over her waist to circle her breast, then rising as he surged higher in the bed to frame her face, and kiss her.

With a great deal more passion than he’d allowed to show earlier. A hint of the potent passion she’d originally unleashed with that first bold kiss.

As he had with all the women he’d ever bedded, he kept a sure hand on the reins, sank into her mouth and claimed, then fed her desire, and fire, and flames.

Waited until she was burning, until she arched into him, desperate and wanting.

Then he realized her hands had gone to his waist, slipped beneath the shirt to rise, skating over the sides of his chest.

Her touch distracted him.

Enough for her to pull back from the kiss and gasp, “Off — off! I want to touch you.”

So much for no demands. He hesitated, but she was determined, bunching the fabric and struggling to haul it up.

He growled, then drew back; rolling to her side, he seized the bunched hem and, half sitting, hauled the shirt off over his head.

He hissed as her hands, small, scorching, demanding, found his chest.

Even as he wrestled to free his arms from the sleeves, she greedily spread her palms and caressed. A quick glance showed him her face, delicate features limned in silver moonlight — and then he couldn’t look away.

Could only prop there, brace his senses, and let her have her way.

She met his eyes only briefly, but sensing his acquiescence, her lips lightly curving she embarked on an exploration, touching, tracing, learning each and every line of muscle, circling his flat nipples, then pushing her hands wide over the heavy muscles defining his upper chest, then sliding her palms higher to stroke the firm muscles and heavy bones of his shoulders.

He watched her face. She was enthralled — there was no other word for it. And while more women than he could count had looked on him with even greater lasciviousness, her appreciation was infinitely sweeter.

Ultimately she used her weight to push him fully onto his back. He told himself he allowed it because he was burning with a sensual curiosity he’d never before experienced — wondering what a virgin might think to do next. Luckily the rucked sheet still separated their lower bodies; if it hadn’t, he doubted she would have been so successful in keeping her concentration so clearly fixed on returning the pleasure he’d given her. .

Her intent was novel enough to capture him.

To have him let her come over him and take his mouth — to have him lie back and let her kiss him as she would, as deeply as she dared, as tauntingly, as challengingly.

Even while his senses purred and gorged themselves on her promise, on the unstated acknowledgment of the surrender her kiss declared would soon be his to claim, while he held her steady above him and let her kiss him with fiery abandon, some part of his mind was noting, registering, storing away the observation that few women he could recall had ever been as bold as she, as insistent.

Most had lain back and let him love them; few had exerted themselves to freely love him back. And to take delight in that loving; as she drew back from the kiss, her sensuously sultry expression declared she was definitely delighting.